Misidentification of a Defendant
To guard against misidentification, peace officers are required to undergo training to recognize when an eyewitness’s statement may be unreliable. Police line-ups and photo arrays shown to witnesses must meet certain procedural requirements aimed at eliminating suggestive methods of identifying suspects. Finally, eyewitnesses are required to indicate the level of confidence they have in their identification of a person as the perpetrator of a crime. These procedures safeguard against misidentification.
- Misidentification of a Defendant
- Coerced Confessions
- Testimony from Jailhouse Informants and Drug Informants
- Challenging a Wrongful Conviction: Habeas Corpus
- Obtaining a Pardon Based on Actual Innocence
- Compensation for Wrongful Conviction
Coerced Confessions
Sometimes, aggressive police investigative methods lead to wrongful convictions. Coercive interrogation techniques may cause a person to sign a false confession. To combat this problem, Texas peace officers are required to record custodial interrogations (interviews with person who have been taken into custody for suspicion of having committed a crime) from start to finish for the following crimes:
- Murder
- Capital murder
- Kidnapping
- Aggravated kidnapping
- Human trafficking
- Continuous human trafficking
- Continuous sexual abuse of a child
- Indecency with a child
- Improper relationship between an educator and a student
- Sexual assault
- Aggravated sexual assault
- Sexual performance of a child
If the officer used coercive techniques to obtain a confession, a record of the techniques will exist to allow a defendant to challenge the confession later. The recording provides greater protection for defendants than pitting a defendant’s word against an officer’s word for the circumstances of the confession.
Note that recording is not required for all felonies or serious crimes, only those listed above. Interrogation of a person charged with manslaughter or robbery, for example, need not be recorded. It is not evidence from the statute why the legislature decided to protect, say, an educator charged with an improper relationship with a student and not a person charged with robbery. However, for now, only interrogations for the crimes listed above need be recorded.
- Misidentification of a Defendant
- Coerced Confessions
- Testimony from Jailhouse Informants and Drug Informants
- Challenging a Wrongful Conviction: Habeas Corpus
- Obtaining a Pardon Based on Actual Innocence
- Compensation for Wrongful Conviction
Testimony from Jailhouse Informants and Drug Informants
Also known as a jailhouse “snitch,” a jailhouse informant is a person imprisoned with a defendant who claims that the defendant made a statement about the crime indicating his or her guilt. These informants cut deals with prosecutors to receive leniency for the crimes with which they were charged in exchange for testifying against the defendant. When a person has an incentive to testify against another, the testimony is inherently suspect. But convictions have often relied on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch that the defendant admitted guilt.
In Texas, the testimony of a jailhouse informant must be corroborated (supplemented or confirmed) by other evidence linking the defendant to the crime; the testimony of the informant is not enough by itself to convict a defendant of a crime. The law also requires the state to track the use of the testimony of a jailhouse informant and any benefits offered or provided to him or her in exchange for testimony. Documenting the deals made with jailhouse informants helps a defendant challenge the informant’s truthfulness as well as a conviction based on an informant’s testimony.
Similarly, evidence against a defendant who is charged with a drug crime might have been obtained from a private citizen acting as an informant. These informants often have drug charges pending against them, and they provide testimony in exchange for leniency in the penalty imposed for the crime with which they are charged. As with a jailhouse informant, a drug informant’s testimony must be corroborated by other evidence linking the defendant to the crime.
- Misidentification of a Defendant
- Coerced Confessions
- Testimony from Jailhouse Informants and Drug Informants
- Challenging a Wrongful Conviction: Habeas Corpus
- Obtaining a Pardon Based on Actual Innocence
- Compensation for Wrongful Conviction
Challenging a Wrongful Conviction: Habeas Corpus
Even with the laws aimed at preventing wrongful convictions, such a conviction may still occur. If the prosecution did not corroborate an informant’s testimony or failed to follow proper procedures for conducting a lineup, a person may still be wrongfully convicted of a crime. Misidentification, coerced confessions, or other irregularities in the proceedings against a defendant may still result in the conviction of an innocent person.
If you were convicted of a crime of which you are totally innocent, you must file what is known as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Wrongful conviction generally cannot be established on a direct appeal of the conviction. An appellate court is limited to the record before it in making its decision on an appeal and the evidence necessary to show innocence usually exists outside of the official record. In a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the court may consider evidence outside of the trial record.
A writ of habeas corpus is an order issued by a court requiring an entity that has a person in custody (usually imprisonment) to bring the person before the court and justify the detention. A claim of “actual innocence” of a crime may justify the issuance of such a writ. Actual innocence means that you are completely guiltless in the commission of the crime with which you were charged, not just that the evidence was insufficient to convict you or that an element of the crime was not properly established.
To obtain a writ of habeas corpus based on actual innocence, you have to provide evidence discovered after trial that establishes your innocence. This evidence is weighed against the evidence produced at trial, and the court decides whether the new evidence invalidates the state’s original case and that “no reasonable juror” would have convicted you had the evidence been available. This is a strict standard and difficult to meet. But strong evidence of innocence, such as DNA evidence or the confession of another person to commission of the crime, may result in reversal of the conviction.
If the evidence of your innocence was discoverable before or during the trial but your attorney did not find or use it, you may have a claim for ineffective assistance of trial counsel, which is another basis on which to obtain a writ of habeas corpus. If the court finds that trial counsel was deficient and that the deficiency affected your trial, you would be entitled to a new trial (but not exoneration of the crime). At the new trial, the evidence of innocence that the first trial counsel could have used may cause the prosecutor to drop the charges against you or may be used at trial to establish that you did not commit the crime with which you were charged.
- Misidentification of a Defendant
- Coerced Confessions
- Testimony from Jailhouse Informants and Drug Informants
- Challenging a Wrongful Conviction: Habeas Corpus
- Obtaining a Pardon Based on Actual Innocence
- Compensation for Wrongful Conviction
Obtaining a Pardon Based on Actual Innocence
The Governor of Texas has the authority to pardon, or grant “clemency,” to a person who was convicted of a crime. To obtain a pardon, you must file an application with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. The Board will consider an application based on innocence upon receipt of:
- a written recommendation of at least two of the current trial officials of the court (the sheriff, the judge, and the prosecutor), with one trial official submitting documentary evidence of actual innocence, which may include the results and analyses of pre-trial and post-trial DNA tests or other forensic tests and/or sworn statements of witnesses; or
- a court order containing findings of fact and conclusions of law in which the court recommends that the Court of Criminal Appeals grant state habeas relief on the grounds of actual innocence.
Once the Board receives the required documentation, it will investigate your claim and decide whether to make a recommendation of clemency to the Governor. A majority of the Board must agree to recommend clemency before the Governor may even consider it. Since 2017, the number of recommendations has increased year over year.
The Governor has the right to grant or deny any application for a pardon, and he or she does not need to state a reason. It is difficult but not impossible to obtain a pardon. In 2021, the Board recommended 75 pardons, and the Governor issued eight.
- Misidentification of a Defendant
- Coerced Confessions
- Testimony from Jailhouse Informants and Drug Informants
- Challenging a Wrongful Conviction: Habeas Corpus
- Obtaining a Pardon Based on Actual Innocence
- Compensation for Wrongful Conviction
Compensation for Wrongful Conviction
In Texas, if you are found to have been wrongfully convicted of a crime, you are entitled to compensation for the years you were unlawfully imprisoned. Currently, a person who was wrongfully convicted receives:
- $80,000 per year for each year of incarceration
- Payment of child support for the years he or she was incarcerated
- Eligibility for health insurance
This compensation is not automatic; a person must apply for it. Before a person may request payment, he or she must show innocence by one of the following means:
- a full pardon based on innocence,
- relief in accordance with a writ of habeas corpus that is based on a court finding that the person is actually innocent of the crime, or
- relief in accordance with a writ of habeas corpus that is based on another ground (such as ineffective assistance of trial counsel) and:
- the state district court in which the charge against the person was pending has entered an order dismissing the charge; and
- the dismissal is based on a motion to dismiss in which the state’s attorney states that no credible evidence exists that inculpates the defendant (establishes guilt) and that the state’s attorney believes that the defendant is actually innocent of the crime.
Wrongful conviction remains a problem in Texas despite the procedural safeguards designed to prevent it. The process for establishing actual innocence as well as the application for compensation for wrongful conviction is complicated and lengthy and requires specific documentation to establish innocence and entitlement. If you are innocent of a crime of which you were convicted, you need an experienced attorney who can prove innocence and obtain the compensation you are due.